The Crew and the Attempted Murder
by murp-o
Summary: The Crew are assigned to solve an attempted murder case. Police AU


**(A/N): I will complete this later but for no here is a relatively long story for Round 4 of the Pro-Bending Circut.**

 **Team:** Harbor Town Hog Monkeys

 **Position:** Firebender

 **Genre Chosen:** Mystery

 **Additional Prompts:**

 _Easy_

(word) bar

(object) clock

 _medium_

(smell) blood

 **Word Count (Not Including Author's Note):** 2,563 words (a lot more than I usually write.)

 _The Crew and the Attempted Murder_

* * *

"Attempted murder," Chief Beifong said as she dropped the case file on her desk. "Victim is 34 year old male inventor named Varrick. His assistant found him lying on the ground of his office around 11 pm with a pool of blood after being shot three times in the chest. She immediately called the police and they managed to save him in time. He's currently in the hospital where we have officers interrogating him."

Chief Beifong looked up at the four officers standing in the room. Three of them were listening.

One of them was playing with a snow globe on her desk.

"Bolin, do you want me to take you off this case? I know many people waiting for their chance to tackle a mystery like this."

He quickly let go of the snow globe. "Sorry, uh, chief. Please go on."

Beifong picked up the case file and handed it to Mako.

"Just go and solve the case," she muttered, ushering them out of her room.

* * *

"An attempted murder. This is so interesting!" Bolin said, bouncing up and down excitedly as they walked towards the parking lot. Mako glared at his brother and Bolin stopped bouncing. "I mean like I'm sorry that Varrick had to get hurt." Korra laughed.

"You got to admit, Mako, an attempted murder is a really interesting case," Asami said. "Also we should probably get going. I can feel Chief Beifong glaring at us even from here."

"She's always glaring at someone," Bolin noted. "Like Mako."

Korra snickered as she grabbed the issued car keys. "Dibs on driving!" she called out, running to the door.

"No way," Asami said, swiping the car keys from Korra's hand. "I love you and all but I also love my life." Korra pouted but relented.

The police car fit the four of them easily but didn't have enough room for them to easily set up a workspace to look over Varrick's case file. Korra flipped through a few of the pages.

"There can be so many people behind this," she muttered as she looked at the articles that were supposed to be helpful. "Heck, even his assistant could have done it."

"But she was the one who called in," Asami retorted.

"Maybe she was trying not to get caught," Mako said, pondering on the idea. "It makes sense. I can ask Chief for Zhu Li's file. Maybe there's something in there that'll help."

Bolin squealed excitedly from his seat. "This is so exciting," he said. "It's like a movie. I can see it, _The Crew and the Attempted Murder._ We can even make up backstories. I'll be Nuktuk, a hero who falls in love with a beautiful damsel named Ginger."

Korra laughed, "Yeah and Mako would be the villain; a man who wants to take over the world and kill Ginger."

"Who would only be saved in the end by Nuktuk," Asami finished. "It's perfect!" Bolin fell off his seat with laughter, earning a slap from Mako's hat.

* * *

The office room reeked of blood, a smell that Korra would never get used to. She had joined the police department to tackle cases like these, but that didn't mean she would ever get used to the smell of blood or the blood stains.

"Little evidence here; a smart killer," she muttered as she looked around the room. There were a few evidence markers noting the strand of hair and muddy footprint which both laid near the door. At the back of the room was a messy desk, almost as if someone had messed around with it, looking for something.

"The footprint is a size 9 shoe," Asami said. "Judging by the stain, I guess the shoes were a pair of sneakers."

"So not Zhu Li?" Korra said, glancing up from the mess of papers on Varrick's desk.

"Unless she wears size 9 sneakers, then no," Mako said. "What are you looking at?"

"The papers that are strewn on his desk," Korra said as she shuffled through the paper work. The majority of the papers were small stuff like lists of ideas and information on the latest football game.

"Why are you looking at them?" Mako sent Korra a confused glance.

She shrugged, "It's messy. Almost like the killer was looking for something."

"How do we not know he's just a normally messy person?"

"You never know," Korra said slowly. She pulled out a sheet of paper. It was a small blue print for a weapon. A giant red cross was drawn over it with a note that said, ' _Too dangerous; operations must be stopped.'_

"Jackpot," she muttered.

"Did you get anything?" Asami asked, walking over and peeking over Korra's shoulders. "Spirit vine cannon, too dangerous? What is this and how is it helpful?"

"Ask for permission to check his emails, let's see what we can find."

* * *

Varrick turned out to be a very energetic man even after he was shot with lots of morphine going into his system. Zhu Li, his assistant, was sitting by his bedside and seemed to have been sitting there since he was admitted into the hospital.

"And then the murderer tried to shoot me but I threw a pot at her, misdirecting the bullet and saving my life," Varrick said, ending the exaggerated story.

"That's so cool!" Bolin squealed from his seat. "So what happened to the bear which was in the room?"

"Oh, it died when it saw the shooter."

Korra turned to Mako and Asami who also seemed to be resisting the urge to slap Varrick. It had been four hours since they got into the room and so far they had got nothing besides the fact the murderer was female. They didn't even get a small description of her besides the made up one that Varrick had.

"I never actually got a glimpse of her," Varrick said. "But that's so boring. We don't want the crowd to be sleeping! So I say she had blonde hair."

"You never got a glimpse of her?" Mako asked. "Not even when she walked into the room?"

"It was too dark," Varrick had replied. "Besides, who cares about the truth? The truth is boring! She walked into my room, shot me three times before I could see her, messed up some papers on my desk and then I passed out. What we need is an interesting, riveting story to tell."

They had stayed a bit longer to see if anything Varrick would say was like the truth but nothing stayed the same, not even the weapon. In the exaggerated story, the murderer had a sword which didn't even make sense.

"Let's go Bolin," Mako said before they had to sit through another story.

"But-" he whined. He sighed dejectedly, getting out of his seat. "You got to tell me the ice cream story one day." Mako sighed and dragged him out of the room.

"That was completely useless," he complained in the car.

Korra shrugged, "At least we know the basis of it. He was shot before he saw the person but he knew the person was female or a guy with really long hair."

"Not much to base it off of," Asami said. "But it's a start. Have we gotten the information on the strand of hair yet?"

Mako shook his head. "We're at a dead end. We have nothing."

"We should just wait until forensics gives us the results on the strand of hair," Korra said. "Until then, we might as well start looking through his emails and Zhu Li's file. Chief approved both of them."

* * *

Bolin and Korra were given the tedious task of going through Varrick's emails. The majority of them were business emails about upcoming inventions he was going to make or the statistics for Varrick Global Industries that month. The rest were tales of his adventures. Korra had given those to Bolin to deal with who seemed to love the stories and shout out facts about it.

Korra on the other hand hated sitting in the office while doing research. She spent the time, scrolling through the emails only half reading them and mostly skimming them for threats and meet-up dates that sounded fishy which was currently at an all total of zero. She clicked into another one, skimming the beginning and skipping over the end, not bothering to process the information. She was about to click out when Bolin asked, "Who's the Great Uniter?"

"Who?" Korra asked.

"The Great Uniter," Bolin repeated, pointing at a name at the bottom of the page.

She quickly reread the email, muttering it out loud. "Dear Varrick, I have heard that Varrick Global Industries has created a one of a kind weapon. I'll love to hear your plans for it and probably find buyers for it if you can get it to work. Please meet me up at the Republic Bar next Friday and we can talk about this farther. Your future business partner, the Great Uniter."

"Sounds fishy to me," Bolin said. "Did he end up meeting up?"

"It doesn't say here and neither do any of the other emails," Korra said.

"We should bring this to Asami and Mako."

Korra nodded, printing out the email.

* * *

"Good news, we found something," both Korra and Asami had said when they walked into Chief Beifong's office. She raised one eyebrow.

"This sounds promising," Chief Beifong said. "Asami, what did you find?"

"We managed to find multiple motives for Zhu Li including the fact that Varrick doesn't respect her opinion, she's quite smart but no one seems to acknowledge it, and this." She hands Chief Beifong a sheet of paper. "She's been researching weapons, guns and information on the greatest murders of all time."

Chief Beifong nodded, looking over the internet history. "This is promising. Korra, what did you and Bolin find?"

"An email from someone under the name of The Great Uniter," she said handing the printout of the paper. "She was requesting a meet-up with Varrick to see his plans on a weapon which I believe is this one." Korra pulled out the blue print for the spirit vine cannon.

"Zhu Li could have been the Great Uniter," Asami said. "We'll go and see what she was doing on the day of the meeting."

* * *

Meeting Zhu Li and talking to her made Korra realize that she was a nice woman who was very protective over Varrick. _It might be an act,_ she thought, trying to convince herself even though she knew it wouldn't work. The lady had a lot of evidence that was pointing towards her but also so much evidence proving she was innocent. On the day of the meeting, she had also been at the bar saying that she was there as Varrick's assistant to help finalize any deal. The email address couldn't be traced, leaving Zhu Li at the top of the suspect list.

They had met up in Varrick's room. Bolin had managed to get him to talk about his trip to the South Pole, making sure he didn't interfere with the conversation. Only about twenty minutes into the conversation did the police walk into the room.

"Zhu Li Moon, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Iknik Blackstone Varrick. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

The look on Zhu Li's face was pure terror but she didn't say anything. Varrick on the other hand did speak up.

"What are you doing? Why are you taking her away?" He cried out. An officer told him to be silent explaining the situation.

"Your assistant is suspected of being the murderer."

"But she wouldn't do anything! Right Zhu Li? Right?" He asked, staring at her pleadingly. She looked away.

* * *

"Why did you arrest her?" Korra cried out, running into Chief Beifong's office. The rest of the crew followed, who had obviously tried to calm her down and failed. "There was a lot of evidence against her but so much more evidence that proves she's innocent!"

"Korra, calm down," Chief Beifong reasoned.

"I will not calm down! She's innocent and you've locked her up for attempted murder!"

Chief sighed, rubbing her temples. "Korra, forensics came in. The strand of hair is Zhu Li's."

"Yeah but works for him. Of course she has hair in his room," Korra retorted.

"He never treated her fairly," Chief said. "It makes sense Korra. If you want to find another murderer, feel free but for now, Zhu Li is staying in lock up."

* * *

Dealing with a mad Korra was not fun. She spent the majority of the car ride complaining about the injustice of the system and how there were so many other people that could've done it.

"You were the one who suspected it was her in the first place," Mako pointed out earning a glare from Asami and Bolin before realizing that he had just made Korra go into a long forty minute rant on all the evidence against Zhu Li.

"What do we plan to do?" Asami finally asked when Korra calmed down.

"We find who really tried to kill Varrick."

The plan was simple. They would email the Great Uniter asking if she was still up for the deal with the weapon. If she agreed then they would find a meet-up day and place and talk to her there. Simple plan with one problem.

"No," Chief Beifong stated dryly.

"What do you mean no? This is a great plan. All we need is the equipment to rig the place up to catch the Great Uniter if she flees or confesses," Korra complained.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you guys." Chief Beifong shrugged. "As far as the police station is concerned, the case is closed."

Korra glared at the Chief, slamming the door as she walked out. Bolin and Mako went after her to make sure she didn't flip a desk (again.)

"Can you do anything to help us?" Asami asked.

"I can ignore the fact that some of the equipment is gone from storage," she said. "Good luck, it sounds like a good mission."

* * *

The Great Uniter immediately took the bait. They wrote that while Varrick was hospitalized and Zhu Li was in prison, he wanted a new assistant to help him. Asami Sato had gotten the job and had seen the original offer and was interested in opening up the offer again. She got a blue print labeled the 'Spirit Vine Cannon' and wanted to share it with the Great Uniter. It only took a few minutes for them to get a reply where they agreed to meet up at Republic Bar at 5pm.

"It's almost time," Korra muttered, looking up at the clock above the counter. "Is everyone in place?"

"Ready," Mako replied from where he was pouring drinks.

"Nuktuk ready to go," Bolin said from the table where he was seated with Korra.

"Let's do this," Asami said, waving at the figure walking through the door.


End file.
